Thursday, July 28, 2005

Wedding Crashers: Alternate Ending

I mentioned in a previous post that Pele and I worked out a better ending for Wedding Crashers (which we both enjoyed). Shane asked me what it was and since I'm rather taken with the new ending, here it is.

I am assuming you have seen the movie. If not, please stop reading. It will be a spoiler. Or merely confusing.

The flaw in the movie is that Owen Wilson (OW) wants Rachel McAdams (RM) to dump her fiancé and give him a chance. "Don't marry him, because you love me" is the message. In order for the audience to respect her, RM needs to dump the fiancé on her own initiative. He is a big jerk and doesn't treat her well (which she knows) and he is cheating on her in a casual way (which she doesn't know).

When OW's cover is blown and RM refuses to speak to him for many months, she shouldn't continue the engagement with the boorish fiancé. What happens in the film: she gives OW the silent treatment and walks away from him because he was lying to her.

What should happen: as soon as OW is gone, she should DUMP the creepy fiancé--or at least very soon after. Perhaps add a scene where she overhears him talking about the "slutty activist girls" or catched him in an indiscretion. She might consider calling OW or responding to his overtures, but she decides not to because she doesn't know if she can trust him.

(Side note: The creepy gay-artistic little brother was sort of funny, but unnecessary. He also seemed to be from a different movie. The Addams' Family perhaps? Cut him and spend more time developing the relationship between OW and RM.)

OW can be all depressed, avoid VV, obsessively try and contact RM, just as happens in the film. The scenes of him fumbling around crashing weddings on his own are priceless--but it should be made clear that he doesn't succeed in picking up women because his heart isn't in it. He's in love with someone else.

I like OW walking in on VV and his girlfriend having sex. Finding out about them that way was in the spirit of their relationship. I love that VV has to keep her a secret from OW to keep his manly street cred. Very funny.

When VV shows up at OW's place for their annual sleepover and says he hasn't seen him for months, it doesn't make much sense (Pele's point). Don't they work together? There should be a better way to demonstrate their estrangement, but this is a minor point. We'd be more willing to suspend disbelief if the rest of the third act rang true.

In the next to last scene, at VV's wedding, OW could try and convince RM to give him another chance--at the RECEPTION! He's the best man, right? The best man always gives a toast. Maybe he could woo her through the toast. It would parallel the beginning of the film--boy met girl at a wedding reception where he was trying to snow her. Girl could finally accept boy at a wedding reception. (Boy wouldn’t need to wreck his best friend's wedding ceremony. Plus, imagine the nice little eye contact, longing looks stuff they could do during the ceremony.) OW and RM bonded over the help he gave her during her toast. There is a great line in OW's wedding ceremony speech where he says how pathetic and immature it was to crash weddings just to meet (and sleep with) women--but "I don't regret it because it brought me to you." That's a nice touch. He could say something about that in his best man speech because it's how VV met his bride--but then he could look at RM and she would understand it was about her. And then they could talk and she could fall into his arms, etc.

They could all leave the reception early and drive off into the sunset together, planning future wedding crashing. Sweet!

3 comments:

One other slight problem with the movie i would say was the fact the senator (or anyone else in the family for that matter) did not seem to have a problem with VV being with (and then marrying) the ginger daughter. After they were exposed and vilified like they were, which led to OW being ignored by RmA.